Cook was not shy in professing his love for the college game over the professional ranks. When asked why, he replied, “The passion.” “A lot of us who follow college football are like Walter Mitty,” Cook said. “We dream of being the Saturday hero. On Sundays they play for money. On Saturdays they play for passion, for the love of the game. I think that’s why it’s our greatest sport. When people study this civilization ten thousand years from now, historians are going to be baffled about why more people followed pro football than college. They are going to decide that it was a weakness of this civilization that more people wanted to watch pro football on Sundays rather than college on Saturdays. Many things have changed about the game during my lifetime but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the passion.”